Charter Schools and the Difficulty of Operating Schools

It turns out, opening and operating a school is really hard ... and then it is even harder to make it successful. Unfortunately, as this episode shows, there is a lot of schools that do not make it and kids, who have no choice, get caught in the middle. Political types who have no understanding of schooling, simply have no idea. A school is not like a business in any way so using business models to try to govern school models is ludicrous. So funny in fact, that it is actually funny in a really sad satirical way. 

Now, as my buddy Wayne Lewis has convinced me and I've seen for myself, there are also a lot of really poor public schools and some great charters. Thus, I am open to Charters as an option to help kids, but it must be an intensely controlled option with lots of fail safes and backup plans and overseen by actual top flight professional educators who know what they are doing. If all that sounds costly ... that is because it is. 

By the way, John Oliver gets satire right (and most American comedians don't) ... Malcolm Gladwell can tell you why. The first time you watch a video like this, you should laugh ... the second time ... not.